"Let go!" Jax shouts, sensing I’m close.
I bury my face in the crook of his neck and let the noise go. With a guttural roar, I spill myself inside him, the climax hitting me like a physical blow, wiping the data clean. I collapse onto his back, my heart hammering against his spine, the silence finally, blessedly, empty.
Jax
The steam in the master shower is thick enough to hide a platoon, turning the gold fixtures into vague, ghostly glimmers. I have the water cranked up high, scalding hot—the only temperature that scrubs away the kind of day we’ve had.
I am sitting on the tiled floor, the water hammering against my back before cascading over Max. He is sitting in front of me, knees pulled to his chest, forehead resting on his arms. The "Ice King" armour lies shattered somewhere back in the kitchen, along with a puddle of olive oil and my dignity. Here, in the steam, there is just Maxwell. Naked, shivering despite the heat, and finally quiet.
I’ve already scrubbed the worst of it off myself—the sweat, the slick film of oil, and the drying, sticky tracks on my thighs where Max spent himself inside me. Washing the "York" off my skin is easy; it’s just a physical mess, an indicator of just how desperately he needed to claim something real.
Washing the "York" off him? That takes a hell of a lot more than soap.
I take the washcloth, soak it in the hot water, and press it to the back of his neck. I work in slow, methodical circles, moving down to his shoulders, then tracing the line of his spine. I am trying to scrub away the humidity of the swamp, and the suffocating stench of his mother’s disapproval.
"You're back," I say quietly, watching the tension finally bleed out of his trapezius muscles.
"I am," he whispers. His voice is raw, stripped of its usual crisp cadence.
I keep the rhythm steady. "Want to tell me what was in those papers you and the Spare were printing at four in the morning?"
Max leans back, his wet head finding the centre of my chest. I wrap my arms around him immediately, pulling him into my heat, shielding him from the spray.
"Mother paid a doctor," Max says. The words fall out of him without a script, heavy and unpolished. "A specialist. Dr. Aris. From 1996 to 1999."
My hands pause on his chest. My combat senses flare—threat detected. I wait.
"She paid fifty thousand dollars to suppress a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder," he continues, his eyes fixed on the drain where the water swirls away. "She signed NDAs. She paid for 'Social Calibration' and 'Behavioral Masking'. She didn't want a son, Jax. She wanted a PR release. She spent my entire childhood paying a stranger to erase me so I could meet the 'Standard of Care'."
The silence that follows is heavier than the steam.
I feel a surge of rage so pure and hot it nearly rivals the water temperature. I want to drive to York Manor and burn that mansion down to the ground. I want to find every person who ever made this brilliant, complicated man feel like a mistake and introduce them to the business end of a trauma shear.
He is waiting for me to pull away. I can feel it—the brace forimpact. He thinks I am going to see the "glitch" in the system and realize I’ve bought a counterfeit.
The idiot.
I turn him around, ignoring the splash of water. I frame his face with both hands, my thumbs sweeping the water off his high cheekbones.
"Max, look at me," I order, using my attending voice.
He looks. His blue eyes are red-rimmed and unguarded.
"That 'Standard' she paid for? It was boring. It was fake. And it didn't work," I say, unable to stop a sharp, fierce grin from touching my lips. "Because you’re still here. You’re still the man who reorganizes my spice rack alphabetically when you're stressed. You're still the man who can diagnose a rare cardiac anomaly from across a room but can't handle the texture of a lumpy sweater."
I lean in closer, forcing him to see the truth in my eyes.
"You're spectacular, Max. You're spectacularlyyou. And if you think a $50,000 bribe changes the fact that you’re the most brilliant man I’ve ever met, then you’re not as smart as I thought you were."
"I am a jurisdictional nightmare," he whispers. It sounds like something Preston would say.
"You'remynightmare," I correct, leaning in to press my forehead against his wet skin. "And I don't give a damn about the NDAs. None of that changed you. It just made you fight harder to find your own way back. I love the man I’m marrying, Max. Not the version she tried to buy."
Max closes his eyes. Under my hands, I feel his chest hitch, a lung-deep release of pressure that he must have been carrying since brunch—hell, maybe since 1996.
"She threatened to buy the pavement, Jax," he says, a small, tired laugh escaping him.
"Let her," I say, pulling him into a kiss that tastes like salt and steam and survival. "We’ll just walk on the grass. Or we’ll buy some better shoes."
